College Outcomes – Career Readiness

College Outcomes -How Are States Reporting on College and Career Readiness?

Introduction

College Outcomes -Preparing students for success in college and careers is one of the primary goals of our education system. How states track and report progress toward the goal of college and career readiness is important for public accountability and transparency; making data available publicly provides a window into how students—and the institutions that serve students—are doing. This brief describes the range of college and career readiness measures states are currently reporting publicly. The brief also provides guidance for what states should be doing to measure students’ college and career readiness.

What Are States Reporting Now?

Other than federally required indicators (student achievement in mathematics and English language arts, graduation rates), state public reporting on college and career readiness measures varies widely. This brief looks at 2014 public data reporting from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and identifies metrics that might correlate to or predict college and career readiness in the areas of:

Academic content

Pathway knowledge

Lifelong learning skills

Postsecondary outcomes

1 These areas align with the CCRS Center’s College and Career Readiness and Success Organizer.

State Academic Content Metrics

The 3 Rs—reading, writing, and arithmetic—are the most widely understood purpose of schooling in America, and all states have made substantial investments in measuring student academic performance in these assessments of mathematics and English language arts (including end-of-course exams and graduation exams). Forty-nine states report student performance on assessments of science. Of those states that report science, 21 states also report performance on assessments of social science.